Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Other reasons you might want to use a VPN:

* Geoblockers - Much media content is blocked based on geolocation, specifically geolocation based on your IP. (Netflix, Youtube, etc.)

* IP blacklist - I know a few people that have inherited a blacklisted IP simply through unlucky ISP IP allocation.

* ISP logging - So not a hostile ISP, but one that actively tries to log your data. (If you live in Europe, this is almost definitely happening. Apparently in the US ISPs even sell this data.)

* Speed - A few people report being able to get a faster network connection. (I'm not entirely sure why this is the case, but I can imagine there being edge cases where this is possible.)

Setting up your own VPN is NOT solution to every problem mentioned here, especially if you want to switch server location on a whim or are not technically minded.



I often get really slow download speeds from the GitHub CDN, which my ISP must not peer with or something. My ISP has faster routes to most of the rest of the internet, including some VPN endpoints, so a VPN can be used to cut out the bottleneck and allow me to download large binaries off GitHub at 2 MB/s instead of 80 KB/s.


GithHub uses S3 for artifacts. If your typical S3 download speed is ~80KB/s, I suspect it would be a similar story for Cloudfront, in which case a huge part of the Internet would be painful to use...


< 80kB/s is what a large majority of the internet experiences with page viewing times is excess of 30 or 60 seconds...


Been there.


Yeah I've heard some gaming folk say that their latency also goes down. I guess it all depends on the pipes your particular ISP has rented and their connecting places.


ISP logging

This also happens in Oz, the government scrapes all ISP browsing metadata. I can't wait to see what happens if/when that data leaks. I'll keep using a VPN thanks.


> I can't wait to see what happens if/when that data leaks.

We can guess: denial, distancing, some weak laws and then nothing. Nobody _ever_ goes to jail. I imagine the five eyes are all sharing this data too.

It's only a matter of time that all data is eventually leaked, in the same way that all things eventually die. Sure, some good eating and exercise slows the process in the same way good security practices does, but eventually a mistake will be made.

This is again why the web needs to get itself decentralized, it'll be faster and securer. We'll get there eventually.


> denial, distancing, some weak laws and then nothing.

That's a bit unfair. Surely there will be a statement about how seriously they take our privacy, too?


Haha sure. Anything to pacify the people.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: